


Thank You For Nothing, You Stupid Puffskein

by afterandalasia



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Bisexual Newt Scamander, Crossover Relationships, Cunnilingus, Getting Together, Gryffindor Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Hand Jobs, Magizoologist Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Morning After, Multi, Oblivious Newt Scamander, Older Man/Older Woman/Younger Man, Post-Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Pre-Poly, Smitten Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Threesome - F/M/M, lucky pierre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 07:40:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: It's not exactly glamorous, being a magizoologist, but Newt didn't think that his managing to find an apprentice would bethatmuch of a surprise. Sure, Hiccup Haddock has a penchant for dangerous animals and a skill for making things explode, but when it comes to magical creatures he truly cares, and he'd go through hell and high water for them.It doesn't surprise him when Tina wants to meet Hiccup; he suspects that it's part curiosity, and part protectiveness. Whatdoessurprise him is when she points out that Hiccup has feelings for him - because once you've noticed something like that, it's pretty hard to have things go back to how they were. And when sparks fly, he doesn't quite anticipate how much might ignite, or how fiercely the fire might manage to burn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MCU_is_awesome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCU_is_awesome/gifts).



> Once upon a time, I idly commented that I would gladly ship Hiccup/Newt. This annoyed some people, largely because I had mentioned it but no fanworks seemed to exist. So I turned the idea over and over in my head, and somewhere along the line, this happened. (I mean really happened. Twenty thousand words written mostly in about two weeks happened.)
> 
> Set *handwave* years after the first Fantastic Beasts movie, somewhere in the early 30s. Trex, referenced herein, is sort of the UK equivalent of Crisco, and was first developed in 1932.
> 
> Also featuring Reggie the tragically stupid Puffskein, in honour of my cousin's adorable but tragically stupid cat.
> 
> Glas Gaibhnenn are from Irish mythology; their milk has magical healing properties. The creepy-cool Alicante is not mine, but comes from the [Monster Blog of Monsters](http://themonsterblogofmonsters.tumblr.com/post/76477602534); it is a parasitic snake that enters through the human host's mouth.

“Newt,” said Tina, looking pointedly at Newt’s desk. “There’s a dragon on your desk.”

“Indeed there is.” Newt, ankles crossed, had his feet on his desk as he looked over a parchment. He only looked up after Tina had been standing and staring at the dragon for several long, dragged-out seconds. “Ah, it’s a Berkian Homing Dragon. Popular name _Terrible Terror._ Rare species, only really found on a couple of islands off the coast of Norway.”

“Last that I checked, your desk was not off the coast of Norway.” She pulled her chair back and sat down carefully, still eyeing the dragon. It licked one eyeball.

“Oh, no, but my apprentice thinks that they could be used as alternative to our current mail systems. They certainly have a very strong homing drive, and combined with a concealment charm or two, well–”

“If you even think about making a dragon invisible, there will be trouble,” Tina said flatly. Newt had to admit, Dougal had been difficult enough. Then she frowned. “Wait, you have an apprentice?”

Finally, Newt put the parchment aside. “Well, you were always saying that I should get another pair of hands to help with the animals, so…”

“You actually _found_ one?” Tina looked at him in disbelief. “And no, what I told you was that you had too many to handle. Who…?”

“His name’s Hiccup. Dumbledore contacted me, said there was a boy graduating last summer that I should meet. And he’s right, he’s very good with them.”

“I dread to think what he did for Dumbledore to point him in _your_ direction.” Tina leant back in her chair and crossed her arms.

Newt scratched his cheek, and tried not to look too guilty. Tina’s only response was to raise her eyebrows and look at him harder, until he finally sighed. She may not have Queenie’s abilities, but she was certainly good at reading him. Finally, he gave in and waved at the Terrible Terror. “He may have been caught in the process of liberating this dragon from its previous captor.”

“ _Owner_ ,” she said. He cast her a glance which he meant to be an agreement to disagree, and from her sigh it seemed that she was willing to accept it. “Yes, that does sound like the sort of things that would need him pointing in your direction.”

“He’s got a real knack for them, though,” said Newt. “Especially the Nundi, it’s taken quite a shine to him. I almost feel I should be offended.”

“You let him around a Nundi by _himself_?”

It really wasn’t possible for her to leave the Auror behind, sometimes. “He knows what he’s doing!” said Newt.

“I’m checking in on his working conditions.”

 

 

 

 

 

Newt really wasn’t sure how much was checking in on Hiccup’s working conditions, and how much was curiosity about anybody else who would willingly take up Newt’s line of work. They caught up with him in the fields outside Castleisland, sketching and making notes on the herd of Glas Gaibhnenn which he had spent most of the year befriending. When Newt and Tina apparated into the field, the cows faded away into the grass again, and Hiccup scowled at the empty field for a few seconds before glancing around.

The scowl gave way to a smile and Hiccup scrambled to his feet, previous annoyance falling away in an instant. He was about Newt’s height and all gangly limbs, covered in freckles from the summer and with his hair its usual mess.

“It’s gonna take days to get them back,” he said, but hugged Newt hello anyway. He went to do the same to Tina, before spotting that she was extending a hand and catching himself. With a seriousness of expression that very few things seemed to warrant, he shook Tina’s hand, and made a fair attempt of not being aware that she was looking him over critically.

“Tina, this is Hiccup. Hiccup, this is Tina Goldstein, from MACUSA.”

“It’s an honour to finally meet you,” said Hiccup.

“Finally?” Tina glanced over at Newt, who tried not to think too much about how much time he had spent talking to Hiccup about her. Even if Queenie wasn’t around, he had spent the last few years getting more and more into the habit of letting Occlumency steal over his thoughts. “Well, Newt told me that he’d found himself an apprentice. I thought that I should check things out.”

“Oh, right. Well,” Hiccup picked up his notebook from where he had dropped it onto the rock he had been using for a seat, and waved it vaguely. “I was making notes on the… well, they’ve gone now… they’re a local beast, great folklore on them, their milk has healing properties. Most of the St. Mungo’s healers think that it’s backward nonsense, but, uh, when I was in with my foot I met a lovely young Healer, Miss Pollingtonious, she–”

“I think she gets the picture,” said Newt quickly, seeing the slow-dawning realisation on Tina’s face that Hiccup was even worse for talking than Newt was. Even when it came to magical creatures. “Are you still staying at that house nearby?” Hiccup nodded. “Come on, let’s go there instead. Let the Glas Gaibhnenn get back here.”

“Do you know where it is?” Hiccup asked Tina. She looked at Newt as if he had neglected to mention something fantastically important, not just the location of the house that Hiccup was currently staying in.

He put a hand on her arm and side-along apparated to the house in a blink, landing neatly just outside the front door. Hiccup appeared a moment later, looking out of breath, just as Tina pulled her arm out of Newt’s hold and gave him a look of vague irritation. She knew by now his skill in Apparition, however, and had long since become used to him treating it like something as simple as snapping his fingers.

“Right,” said Hiccup, pulling keys out of his pocket. “Just let me…”

Tina’s expression turned interested as she glanced over the cottage, taking it in. It was only one storey, with a thatched roof, slightly grubby whitewashing and a red door and windowframes. “Is this some sort of museum piece?”

“The owner went to live with his daughter, in the town. So he was happy to let me stay for the summer.” Hiccup had to put his shoulder to the door to get it open, leading straight into the kitchen. A wood stove sat beneath the window, one wall was hung with hooks where pans and cloaks jostled for space, and it would have looked quite normal were it not for the pair of Terrible Terrors sleeping on the table, the Augurey by the window with its head tucked beneath its wing, and the fact that Newt happened to know there were a dozen frozen Ashwinder eggs in the charmed cold closet beside the sink.

Tina looked around, her eyes lighting on each of the animals in turn, and Newt readied his explanation that Hiccup had been extended the same permits and licences that he had. But it did not seem to be necessary as she did not say anything, and instead aimed her frown at the handful of shirts and trousers that were wringing themselves out over the sink, twisting back and forth.

“No, no, Reggie!” Hiccup dived towards the stove. “No gnawing the stove legs!”

He skidded to his knees beside it, grabbed underneath, and extricated a chirping and squirming Puffskein. The creature itself was grey, but heavily streaked with soot, and Hiccup tucked it into one elbow and sighed as he straightened up, flicking his left wrist to prompt his wand to slide from his sleeve into his hand.

“How you open doors, I do not know…” he said. With a muttered cleaning charm, he flicked the dirt off the Puffskein, which chirruped again and snuggled deeper into his arm. Hiccup slid the wand away again, then loosened the topmost button of his shirt and slipped the Puffskein inside instead. He glanced up, caught Tina’s surprised look in his direction, and cleared his throat. “He was adopted out too young, he’s got some issues.”

“Hence the attempts to eat metal stove legs?” said Tina, dryly.

Hiccup nodded. “He’s… not the brightest. So… can I get you some tea? I don’t have any coffee, I’m afraid, I’d have to head into the city for that…”

“Tea will be fine,” said Tina. This time around, it was Hiccup who looked surprised, pausing with kettle in hand by the stove. Tina folded her arms. “I’ve been spending time with Newt for years, I’ve got used to it.”

“Oh, great.” Hiccup put the kettle on the stove, and drew his wand again to set the fire burning. Newt could not help watching carefully, knowing what Hiccup could be like when wands came into play, but fire was one of the few things the boy seemed to have an affinity for and he did seem to have managed to make it through the summer with his eyebrows intact. “Just let me…”

There was a loud bang from the next room, and in an instant Tina’s wand was in her hand, body on strict alert.

“It’s all right!” Hiccup stepped in front of her, hands raised, which was really a questionable decision when it came to stepping in front of Aurors but very much the sort of thing that Hiccup thought was a good idea. “It’s just the potion that I was working on.” He grimaced. “I guess that answers whether I added too much Streeler Venom…”

Tina sighed and put her wand away again, but turned to Newt. “Experimental potions, now? You know there are rules about animal safety–”

“Separate rooms,” said Hiccup, quickly. He nodded to Newt. “Mr. Scamander was kind enough to enchant a couple of extra rooms for me. There’s even a second floor.” He pointed upwards. “Did you want to see it?”

He gave Tina his most hopeful look, all green eyes and sweet smile, like some picture of spring. Newt could not help smiling as well as Hiccup softened into his eager-to-please role. It was that same sweetness which had won over the animals, as far as Newt had seen, the honesty in every move and the openness in his eyes.

For her part, Tina sighed. “Okay. Let’s see this place.”

 

 

 

 

 

More than once, Tina muttered that the house was clearly Newt’s work. The charms were only in place for the summer, but they allowed space for the next clutch of Occami eggs, had an extra room downstairs where the Graphorns could shelter when it rained or turned colder, without impinging on the kitchen or the room full of books which Newt and Hiccup had borrowed or bought to start building up a library of texts. Hiccup did not have the skill in charms that Newt did, they both knew that, but he was very good with potions and had a knack for languages besides. It was very useful having someone who could read the more obscure runic texts, rather than having to struggle with fiddly translation charms.

Hiccup showed them around with a grin, pushing up his sleeves and apologising for the occasional singe mark from the half a dozen Terrible Terrors scampering around the master bedroom, and even Tina’s wary gaze started to fade as he introduced her to the handful of Clabberts that Newt had retrieved from a breeder keeping them in poor conditions in mainland Europe. The little amphibian perched on her stiffly outstretched arm, staring up with yellow eyes.

“Well, no light,” said Hiccup. “That means he likes you.”

“Technically, it means that he doesn’t sense danger,” Newt pointed out.

Hiccup shrugged, still smiling. “These ones are a bit jumpy. They sense danger rather more than Clabberts actually should. So if this guy’s calm, it’s a good sign.”

By the time that they returned, the kettle was whistling enthusiastically, and Hiccup cursed as he hurried to retrieve it from the heat. They sat at the battered wooden table, and Newt could have sworn that he was watching the tea go cold in Hiccup’s cup as he talked, enthusiastically, about how the animals had been doing in the past weeks since Newt had dropped in, before launching into a long explanation of how he had slowly acclimatised the Glas Gaibhnenn to his presence so that they would stay visible in the field while he was there.

He looked back and forth between them, fiddling with the braids at the base of his hair or gesticulating as he wove his way through the previous weeks. He was still talking eagerly about having glimpsed a calf – only half-visible, through the mists of magic in which they hid – when there was a plaintive wail from above them, and Hiccup looked up sharply.

Both Newt and Hiccup went to stand at the same time, but Hiccup waved it off. “Occami,” he said, to Tina. “I’ve got it.” Again, that eager smile. “I’m the apprentice, after all.”

Newt shrugged and sat back down again, letting Hiccup almost skid over to the cold closet, remove a pail of meat, and hurry out of sight with it. He took another sip of his tea, or at least the lukewarm dregs of it, and with a swirl of his finger let heat wind back into it again.

As he glanced up from the cup again, he realised that Tina was looking at him with amusement in her eyes. “So, that’s your apprentice.”

“He’s doing well,” said Newt, relieved that at least he did not need to sound defensive about it. He fiddled with the handle of his cup. “Not great with the Niffler, he did object after the whole leg incident, but he’s good with the others.”

“Leg incident?”

Newt shifted in his chair. “He might have tried to steal Hiccup’s leg at one point. Too shiny of an alloy.”

Tina stifled a laugh in a cough, none too successfully, and Newt flicked a glance at her. She was almost smirking, the sort of more familiar expression he had become more used to her wearing as they grew more comfortable around each other. “And crushing on you besides.”

“Wait.” Newt frowned. “The Niffler?”

At that, Tina rolled her eyes, her voice becoming more blunt again. “No, the _boy_. Good grief, Newt.”

“He’s just my apprentice,” said Newt, looking away again and feeling himself starting to blush. Which this was hardly the time for. “He said at the time that he admired my work, I know that it’s not always been easy for him adjusting to this life but he’s doing well–”

“Oh, I just meant the way he looks at you,” said Tina. “It doesn’t take Queenie’s skills to see that.”

Quite sure that the flush was all the way to his ears by now, Newt shot her an irritated look. “I of all people know that it is good to find somewhere that one can feel that they fit in the world, even if it is not part of mainstream wizarding society. Hiccup had some problems both during and after school, never mind the issues that he faced when he tried to talk about the welfare of magical creatures–”

“All of which frankly only makes it less surprising that he’s carrying such a torch for you.” Tina looked straight at him, and Newt hastily averted his eyes as if she, too, had some Legilimency in play. “He follows you into your line of work, he recounts what he’s been doing in the hope of getting your approval–”

“Again, he is my apprentice, my approval is something of a central part of the matter–”

“And I suggest that you try meeting his eyes the next time that he speaks to you.”

“You appreciate that there is a certain irony to us having this conversation, yes?” said Newt abruptly, before he could feel any more cornered by Tina’s words or find himself becoming any more defensive of Hiccup.

Tina pressed her lips tightly together, then got to her feet and crossed over to where they had left the teapot on the side. She was just pouring as Hiccup trotted down the stairs again, his footsteps a familiar asymmetric pattern, and breezed back into the room.

“All fed! Is everything all…” he trailed off, and Newt had little to no doubt that the cold atmosphere in the room had caught his attention. “Right?”

“Yes,” said Newt quickly, as Tina turned with a smile just a little too fake. “We’re fine. How are the Occami doing?”

“All hatched successfully.” Hiccup placed the empty bucket in the sink, and set about washing it out as a Muggle would. Newt suppressed the urge to offer a spell, knowing that it would only be likely to make Hiccup embarrassed about the last time that soap bubbles had ended up consuming most of the kitchen. “We’ve got a bit of a runt, I’m afraid, but I’m making sure they get plenty of food to make up for it. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“Excellent. I’ve been talking with some people in Siam about an area of land that could do with being repopulated. It’s got quite a good wizarding population, and it’s not easy to traverse so it should be good at keeping down any accidental Muggle findings.

“Sounds like a plan.” Rinsing off his hands and grabbing a towel from the side to dry them, Hiccup sat down again, reaching into his shirt to reposition Reggie. There was a burbling purr, followed by Hiccup’s shirt shifting. “So… how have things been going in America?”

Newt glanced over at Tina, hoping that she would be the one to take the lead, but she only responded by drinking more of her tea and sitting down in such a way as to make it very clear that she expected Newt to be the one to answer. As much as he knew he was going to regret following her advice, he glanced over at Hiccup, who was regarding him with a sort of yearning smile that seemed to tighten around Newt’s chest.

It took some work to get the words out, talking about the weeks he had spent in America liaising with MACUSA on updating their magical creatures laws and protections. He was also overly aware that more than a little of what he was saying was addressed to Hiccup’s hands, wrapped around his own mug but twitching and mobile, a few small scars and burn marks peppered across them.

“Are you staying for dinner?” said Hiccup, as Newt finally made it to the end of his words. His smile turned almost coy. “I promise we’re not sharing with the Graphorns this time.”

“This time?” said Tina.

“We misjudged the contents of the cupboard,” Newt admitted. “And the Augurey had come in injured and dangerously full of Chizpurfles, so we both had to stay with her. It was fine. They’re vegetarian.”

“I remember being a kid and thinking that being an Auror was the most exciting job around.” Tina folded her hands, regarding them both with a faint smile. “Then I discovered the paperwork. Sounds like you two have the better stories.”

She was the only one at the table not inclined to fidget, Newt could not help noting with more than a little jealousy. His own foot was bouncing in place where he had his ankles crossed beneath the table, trying to burn off the incessant energy beneath his skin.

He would have been a lot more comfortable with the conversation if Tina had not drawn his attention to the way that Hiccup looked at him. A smile that was fondness and not amusement, a glow in his eyes as his gaze lingered on Newt’s face, the way that his hands would still, at least for a while, as he did so.

“Dinner?” Hiccup repeated, and Newt knew just how easy it would be to say that he had somewhere else to be. Tina was still sitting back and letting him lead, had mercifully not jumped in to give an answer for him. But Hiccup was his _apprentice_ , and it was not going to do either of them any good if Newt continued to feel as out of his depth as this, unable to keep their interactions as professional as they had managed to be so far.

He forced himself to smile. Better to remind himself how easy their conversation could be, how even with their differences in magical qualifications – and Houses, for that matter – when it came to magical creatures they had seen quite perfectly eye to eye.

“Sounds delightful,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup cooked like a Muggle. It fascinated Tina at first, to judge by the way that she watched him move about the kitchen, at least until she realised how long it was going to take and stepped in to help. Newt took over minding Reggie, who was good-natured despite his attempts to chew on the table surface and Newt’s cuffs respectively, and prepared the meals for the various creatures on the side table while Hiccup and Tina worked on the more complex food for themselves.

Their conversation was rather more fluid than Newt’s own had been, and Newt would occasionally glance over to see Hiccup gesticulating with a spoon as he spoke animatedly about his father, head of the Pest Sub-Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, once dedicated to extermination as a policy but now coming round to Hiccup’s discussions of relocation and other alternate solutions. He owned up to the whole tale of how he had been arrested by Aurors while retrieving the first of the Terrible Terrors he had acquired, and how Dumbledore had responded by steering him in Newt’s direction instead.

It appeared that Hiccup was midway through a colourful explanation of how he had lost his left foot, complete with very vivid descriptions of how he had broken into his father’s workplace and how the manticore had escaped, when he trailed off and looked around, frowning.

“Is everything okay?” said Newt.

“I thought I heard…” Hiccup hastily put down his knife and hurried for the door. “Arrogance is annoying the others again, what a surprise…” as he opened the door, he broke off into hissing, and Tina looked wildly round at Newt.

“He’s a _Parselmouth_?” she said, in breathless shock, eyes wide and hand very tight around the handle of her wand.

Ah, yes, he had neglected to mention that part. “It’s probably the Runespoor,” said Newt. “Shadow has a very bad tendency to argue with himself.”

Tina stared at him for a couple of seconds, as if he was talking utter nonsense to her again, the same way that she had used to stare at him when they first met. “A _Parselmouth_?” she repeated. “I hadn’t heard any stories about a Parselmouth working for the Ministry over here.”

“Ah, no, it’s not from his father’s side.” That much, at least, Newt had figured out early on. “Apparently after he lost his leg, one of the other patients in the ward was infected with an Alicante. Hiccup was somewhat out of it on the painkilling potions he had been given, but apparently he persuaded the Alicante to come out of its own will and was sitting talking to it when a healer came on their rounds.” Newt sighed. “There would have been some sensationalism over the incident, unfortunately, especially considering it was while Grindelwald was still at large. So St. Mungo’s and Hogwarts worked to make sure news didn’t get out, and Hiccup was not allowed to speak Parseltongue for the rest of his time at school.”

“You don’t think it’s… worrying?”

Newt sighed. “For many years, I was the only voice saying that many of the magical creatures we are now growing to accept were not the dangerous animals as which they were once portrayed. Forgive me if I have a rather different view of ‘worrying’ than some.”

Though she did not reply, Tina paused, then nodded, and turned back to the food that had floated down to the counter in her break in concentration. She whirled it back up and set about reassembling it again, as Hiccup reentered. A Runespoor, barely half the size to which it would have grown without the mistreatment which it had faced in its early life, was draped about his shoulders with one head curled close against his neck, and the other two pointedly looking in different directions from each other.

Hiccup’s face was red, and he looked rather shamefacedly at Tina. “I’m sorry,” he said, halting a few paces away. His left hand fidgeted, never quite touching his wand. “I shouldn’t have started speaking… that. It’s just that Arrogance has been winding up the others lately,” he waved to the Runespoor, “and I’d rather that Shadow _didn’t_ end up with only two heads after everything else that he’s been through.”

“It’s quite all right,” said Tina, breezily. Newt raised his eyebrows behind her back. “Of all the things which I’ve seen in the past few years… well, this isn’t even illegal.”

Hiccup smiled, shyly, making himself looking very much young again. Sometimes it was easy to forget that he was only a few months out of school, when he was dealing with a particularly grumpy injured Jarvey that put a lot of effort into telling him to go away, but there were moments when it came to the fore all over again.

“Must help with some of the animals, as well,” she continued, and Hiccup gave a sheepish laugh. “Not least that one.”

“Yeah.” He stroked one of the Runespoor’s heads, and it nuzzled into his palm. “They get on better than some Runespoors, but it’s still better if I’m around to calm them down. Gets annoying when the Occamis are screaming for Mummy in the small hours of the morning, though.”

“I can only imagine. Right,” with a flick of her wand, Tina brought the plates over from the side, and arranged on them the salad which she had finished putting together. Hiccup seemed to get the message and retrieved the coley provencale from the stove, still using a Muggle towel rather than a protective charm. He was just reaching for a spatula when Tina, with a smile, gave another flick of her wand to serve up that as well.

“Ah, thank you. Always safer to use this,” Hiccup gestured with the spatula, “if I don’t want to be scraping the food of the walls instead. Though I’ve discovered that Reggie is more than willing to assist me in tidying up.”

He glanced over at the Puffskein, whom Newt had managed to distract with a stick of celery.

“You seem to be in possession of a peculiar array of talents,” said Tina.

Hiccup’s smile turned rueful. “I guess that’s one way to put it. Wine, with dinner?”

 

 

 

 

 

The first time, Hiccup glanced at Tina as if asking permission before telling off Shadow in Parseltongue over dinner. Before too long, though, he seemed to become more comfortable with alternating between English and Parseltongue to make snippy comments to the Runespoor about his shoulders.

“You should keep a journal of what they tell you,” said Tina. “We don’t really have Runespoors in America, but I do remember the lessons saying that’s how we learned most about them.”

“I have been trying to persuade him,” Newt said.

Tina cocked her head at Hiccup, an unspoken question in it. “I replied that said journal would be largely filled with profanity,” said Hiccup. “Or sarcastic comments about my appearance. The word fishbone may have been involved.”

“I have refused to ask what they think of me,” said Newt.

It was easier, thanks to the meal and perhaps thanks to the glass or two of wine as well, and Hiccup and Newt slipped back into their old habits of exchanging creature-related incidents they had been through, with the added challenge of trying to impress Tina along the way. Perhaps in response to their back-and-forth of stories – a moke that Hiccup had hidden in his room for nearly an entire term; the first bowtruckles that Newt had kept, as a child, that had attacked Theseus for trying to build a treehouse in their garden; the crup that Hiccup’s father had needed to sit for a weekend that had whined when it had been separated from Hiccup; culminating in Newt telling tales of his years with the Ukrainian Ironbellies – she only encouraged them. Before Newt knew it, he was laughing, talking about his misadventures with a clutch of eggs and a broody mother who had tried to adopt him as well.

“It’s getting late,” said Tina, as the sky turned dark and Newt summoned lights around them. “We should head back to London, if we’re going to tonight.”

“The Glas Gaibhnenn come out about sunrise,” Hiccup replied. “They’re a bit friendlier then, and they might come back tomorrow if we’re lucky. If you can come back early enough… or you could stay, I mean,” he gestured upwards, “there are plenty of bedrooms, and I can move the Occami into my room so they won’t wake you.”

Newt’s stomach seemed to roll over on itself as Hiccup looked up at him again. He remembered being smiled at like that, when he was in Hogwarts and everyone seemed to be flooded with teenage crushes and he was more interested in just about everything except the opposite sex. Had he not been prompted to notice it, he would have accepted without pause, looking forward to seeing the Glas Gaibhnenn come morning.

Crushes passed, crushes faded, and he was sure – or mostly sure – that Hiccup’s would pass too. All that he would need to do until then was maintain his composure, and allow time to pass.

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” he said, with a smile. He caught a flicker of surprise on Tina’s face, and hoped that Hiccup didn’t. “Saves apparating that distance after drinking, as well.”

Hiccup smiled as if the sun had just come out. Newt finished off his glass of wine, and wondered faintly how anyone in the world could deal with being looked at like that.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite Hiccup’s suggestion that Newt take the master bedroom, Newt waved it away with something about Occami that even he was not quite paying attention to. Ever since Tina had said… what she had said… he had found himself on the edge of breathlessness, not sure whether to be flattered or embarrassed. In any case, he told himself strictly, sleeping it off would leave him surely better able to think clearly about it in the morning.

He jogged up the stairs from checking on the Augurey one last time, glad to note from its silence that the weather would be fine the following day, and was not paying attention by the time that he reached the top of the stairs and bumped into Hiccup. He felt his balance going, and grabbed for the top of the bannister only for Hiccup to all but grab him around the waist and pull him up properly onto the landing again.

“Sorry,” said Newt, quickly, intending to step away but not quite sure which direction would be best in the narrow landing. Hiccup’s hands were warm on his waist through his shirt, and even in the low light Newt was very aware of how Hiccup was _looking_ at him, that gaze which it was impossible to forget now that he knew about it.

And he should want to forget about it, he was sure, even if it was proving quite difficult to really persuade himself of that fact.

He had caught Hiccup’s shoulders in the stumble, he realised, and it probably would have been a good idea to let go as well.

“Are you okay?” said Hiccup. It had only been an instant, and Newt was all too aware that Hiccup was all but holding him.

“I’m – I’m fine,” Newt said. Hiccup’s hand shifted minutely, almost burning hot against his skin, and Newt swallowed. “Though, ah, I fear our working relationship may face some difficulties if you continue to look at me like that…”

Meeting people’s eyes always had led to awkward situations more often than anything else. Even in the dim light of the landing, with only light spilling out from the master bedroom reaching them, Newt could see the look in Hiccup’s eyes, lingering on his before flicking down, just for an instant, to Newt’s lips. His gaze seemed almost tangible, as much so as the warmth of his skin, the soft whoosh of his breath.

“Is that you asking me to stop looking at you like this?” said Hiccup, quietly.

He really should have said yes. Instead, the words stopped on his tongue, and he felt himself shake his head just a fraction.

One of Hiccup’s hands came up and brushed against his jaw with rough-tipped fingers. Then in a single fluid move Hiccup moved in and kissed him, lips warm and soft, and Newt snatched in his breath but found himself kissing back all the same. Perhaps it was nothing more than _instinct_ , that same feeling in his gut that made it so much easier to work with creatures and their honesty than it was to handle humans and their plans and secrets.

He felt Hiccup’s back bump against the wall, but Hiccup’s only response was to run his hand up and into Newt’s hair, actions as clear as words and far more suitable to multi-tasking. His lips parted, catching Newt by surprise, but it was only to deepen the kiss as he tugged Newt closer against him.

Newt had to admit that a part of him was, if anything, impressed. He had realised in his teens that as much as the opposite sex was able to catch his eye, so was the same, but considering how rarely people were even willing to befriend him he certainly would not have had a fraction of Hiccup’s boldness at that age. But Hiccup kissed him with certainty, with deliberation, tongue in Newt’s mouth and hand cradling his head close, body arching up into him. But likely it was not so sudden to him; Merlin’s ghost, perhaps it should not have been so sudden to Newt, after the hours they had spent watching over the creatures together, the nights they had stayed up over one or another injured beast, the time that healing charms had done nothing for a Welsh Green and the worried keepers had called for Newt instead. He had needed to borrow from Muggle doctors, cut through the Green’s thick hide to find the internal injuries before healing from the inside out, and both of them had been stripped to the waist, shoulder-deep in blood and laughing with breathless relief as they healed the last layers of skin and brought her out of her Sleeping Charms.

It really should have been more obvious, he supposed. But animal behaviours were always easier to predict.

At least, until Hiccup had stopped speaking. Then it had all simplified, grown clear, and Hiccup gasped against Newt’s mouth as he kissed back and ran one hand down Hiccup’s side to wrap around his hip. But Hiccup kissed eagerly, with a single sound deep in his throat, and even without the eagerness of his mouth there would have been no mistaking the evidence of his arousal pressing against Newt’s hip.

Light flooded them, the door beside them opening, and Newt looked up wildly as it cut back into his attention again. He found himself almost face-to-face with Tina, only a couple of feet from them and looking surprised, though not shocked, at the sight.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, in which Newt was very aware of how he and Hiccup were still wound together, but at the same time very aware of the insistent pressure against him that would only be apparent to Tina were he to step away. For want of any good action to take, he froze, and felt Hiccup’s hand tighten on him in return.

Tina folded her arms over her chest. “I can’t say that was completely unexpected,” she said. Newt felt his face growing hot as she caught Hiccup’s gaze. “I’m just impressed that you spurred him to action.”

Her eyes did not waver from Hiccup’s face, but Newt knew that some of the tone in her voice was meant for him. Those moments when instinct had overridden thought, in both of them. The first time, they had said it would only be once; each time since, they had said it would be the last time. Until it wasn’t. Newt found his eyes tracing the lines of her lips, the way that her hair brushed against her jaw, the flush that was not so much in her cheeks as rising in her chest behind her shirt.

Hiccup made a wordless sound that might have been defence or might have been apology. If it was the latter, Newt hoped that it was only about being caught in such a position, or possibly for bumping against Tina’s wall, now that he thought about it.

Finally, it seemed, she glanced over at Newt. He could see the slightest flicker in her eyes, the fraction of a question that he knew Hiccup would not see, that even he had only learned with time to be able to read in her. She unfolded her arms again, put one hand against her doorframe, and Newt could see the rise and fall of her breath and the way that she glanced over them, the way that they were pressed together. Her lips parted, just slightly, and Newt knew in his bones that it was moments not dissimilar to this, when it was just the two of them, in which they had always fallen back together again. A heartbeat away, and he was sure that he would have kissed her again.

Still looking almost startled, Hiccup looked between them as well, then realisation seemed to dawn in his face. “Ah,” he said, little more than a breath. “I didn’t realise that you…”

He trailed off, and that was right, Newt supposed; neither he nor Tina had given words to whatever it was either. “Sort of,” said Tina, at the same time as Newt said, “in a way.”

“I’m not going to stop you,” Tina continued, after another beat passed between them and hung heavy on the air. “Though I probably should ask–” Newt heard the tightening of her voice, saw the way that she squared her shoulders against a question she was even slightly uncertain of voicing. “After dinner, with the way you looked, whether it was _only_ Newt that you were watching.”

Newt dropped his gaze as Tina’s words unravelled themselves in his mind, then realised that he was staring at Hiccup’s midriff and snapped his eyes back upwards again. Hiccup’s mouth opened and closed, no words quite making it out, even if Newt felt the telltale twitch of his erection.

Finally, Tina rolled her eyes. “You’re as bad as him,” she muttered, then put her hand to Hiccup’s cheek, leaned in, and kissed him almost primly on the corner of the mouth. She drew back a fraction, but still close enough, and let Hiccup close the distance to kiss her a second time, this time on the lips and softening into her touch.

Tina’s other hand came to rest on Newt’s arm, and he watched in something close to fascination as her lips moved against Hiccup’s. He could see the shifts of her throat, the way that her lashes twitched even with her eyes closed, and felt the way that her fingers tightened on him.

When she pulled away, her lips were reddened, and Hiccup stared into her eyes with the same longing look that he had given Newt so many times that day – so many times for many days, in hindsight. Tina turned to Newt, the tilt of her chin a shade away from defiant,

“Tina,” he said, voice hoarse.

“Just promise me,” she said, voice not at all a question, “in the morning, we’ll talk about this.”

He nodded. They had avoided it too many times. For a reply, she kissed him, and his eyes fell closed as he tumbled back into her again. Over and over it had happened, enough times that now he would need both hands to count them, but Tina kissed him hard, her teeth almost bruising on his lower lip, and he would not and could not have stopped it. He traced her tongue with his, tilted his mouth to hers, and felt Hiccup’s eyes on them as much as he could feel the pressure of the hand on the back of his head.

“Godric’s beard,” Hiccup breathed, still gazing at them both as they drew apart. Newt could see him from the corner of his eye, but his unspoken question was for Tina, whether she was sure, whether this was another of Newt’s impulsive, _instinctive_ things.

For a reply she shifted closer, and pressed one last closed-mouthed kiss to his lips.

“The master bedroom is the largest,” she said, quiet but pointed. Newt might have wondered how she if all of them was the one to point that out, but of course she would have seen it even in the briefest of tours, it was her job to notice things and she had always excelled at it.

“Do I get to stand up now?” said Hiccup, half teasing and half breathless, genuine question. It occurred to Newt that he still had Hiccup all but pinned to the wall, and he took a hasty step back, letting Hiccup peel upright again.

“I… hang on, I’ve left Shadow in there, I’m not listening to his comments…”

He hurried to the room, and Newt had to admit that it was probably a good idea to not allow a creature so habitually acerbic as a Runespoor to be anywhere in the vicinity, especially if it brought up the risk of Hiccup slipping into Parseltongue at a potentially inopportune moment.

Tina’s hand brushed down his arm, and he turned half in expectation of another kiss, heat spread beneath his skin and aching in his chest. Instead she reached up to run her fingertips across his lips, and he wondered whether she feared that some of what they had done had been mistakes as well. He didn’t want them to be, didn’t think that they were, but still from time to time the worry could surface in his mind.

But instead, she took him by the hand, and led him to the same room that Hiccup had entered.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been months since he and Tina had last fallen into each other’s arms. Newt would be lying if he said that he did not know how it happened; humans had patterns of behaviour just as much as animals did, intense experiences formed intense bonds, and he had known that he was attracted to her from relatively early on even if he had not intended, at first, to act on it. But it was not something that _he_ had originally intended, and he was fairly sure that it was not something _Tina_ had originally intended, and somehow it had happened all the same.

Each time, all the same.

He kissed her almost feverishly, even as Hiccup was still finishing his hissed discussion with Shadow and closing the door behind them, hands on her hips where he could feel the shift of her back beneath his fingers. Newt jumped as a hand came to rest on his back, and Tina snorted with laughter as he swung round to see Hiccup looking at him uncertainly.

As if he feared that he had been forgotten, between the two of them. No, that would not do. Newt cupped Hiccup’s cheek and pulled him in to kiss him in turn, not quite as sure of himself and not offering quite so fierce a kiss.

He caught his breath as Tina kissed his neck, soft and wet and leaving a cool trail in the wake of her mouth. Someone’s hands came up to the buttons on his shirt, and he reached for his wand where he had tucked it into his belt after divesting himself of his jacket.

“Wait,” he said. “I can remove…”

“Don’t,” breathed Hiccup, between sucking on his lower lip. The hand on his back slid down to his waist, which meant that it was _Hiccup_ undoing his belt and _Tina_ on his shirt, and it was very strange to be trying to untangle those sort of thoughts when it was mostly rather difficult to think clearly at all. “I want to take them off you.”

Newt was not entirely sure what to make of that, but Tina made a sharp sound against his throat as well which made it clear that she was hardly averse to the idea, and she was most of the way down the front of his shirt besides. He did undo the laces of his boots with a brush of his fingers against his wand, as Tina tugged his shirt and the buttons of his undershirt open and ran her hands over the skin beneath, not even pausing now at the lines of scars that littered him. She had been shocked the first time that she had seen them, that he had more scars from animals, especially dragons, than most wizards came back from the war with. But most of the time, there had not been experienced healers on hand to put the skin neatly back together.

In response, he reached slightly clumsily for Hiccup’s shirt, but it was only half-buttoned and Newt settled for untucking it instead. He tugged it upwards, waited for Hiccup to draw back and lift his arms to be some sort of assistance, and quickly followed it up with Hiccup’s undershirt before he missed the opportunity. He had to check his hand not to fold them away but to let them fall, and even then he could not help but think that Tina would have a far easier job sorting out her clothes afterwards, as he peeled one arm at a time out of his shirt. Hiccup started laughing, probably at the whole inelegant tangle of limbs if Newt was any judge, until he muffled it against the shoulder of Newt’s undershirt.

“This is too many elbows for three people,” said Tina, shaking her head. She undid her own blouse, in fast efficient flicks of her fingers, and shrugged it off her shoulders without the slightest care. It had its own sort of elegance about it, and Newt knew that Hiccup would be staring before he even glanced over to confirm it. Tina paused just as she was slipping her hands free, and the way that the fabric slipped over the last few inches of her skin was somehow the most revealing of all. “Unless you meant me as well then, too.”

“Yeah,” said Hiccup. The word cracked slightly, and Tina paused for a moment before letting her blouse drop all the way to the floor.

“Probably not worth me putting it back,” she said, with the slightest twitch of her chin to prompt towards the brassiere about her chest. Or at least, Newt thought it was a brassiere; he was passingly aware of women’s underwear, but did not spend too much time worrying about the specifics of them unless it was the time that he had unravelled a set of silk stockings to use the silk for Muggle-style stitches. But the one that Tina was wearing was not all that different from the ones that he had seen her in before, simple plain cotton with a lace edge which had occasionally made him wonder whether Queenie had a hand in the choice or whether it had all been Tina’s.

Hiccup looked over her bust quizzically, then seemed to realise he was doing so and blushed, coughing against his hand. Untucking his undershirt, Newt pulled it the rest of the way off, and caught his trousers on instinct to stop them from falling off his hips. Finally, Tina took pity and turned around on the spot to reveal the back of her brassiere and the hooks that held it together, and Newt fancied that he saw a smile before she turned away.

With a murmur of realisation, Hiccup reached across, running his fingertips down Tina’s back and stopping just short of the scar that curved around her left hip. It was not all that clear whether it was deliberate or not. Then he traced them back up again, and with great deliberation undid each of the three hooks one at a time, and reached to smooth the straps off her shoulders in perfect symmetry.

Tina slipped the brassiere to the floor as well, and when she turned back there was definitely a smile in place. “That is the worst removing of a brassiere I’ve seen since I was trying to work out how to take my own off,” she said, bluntly but not unkindly, and Hiccup gave a sheepish laugh. Then she hooked a hand over his belt to tug him over again, caught him in a kiss, and Newt felt a strange pang in his chest that was almost jealousy when he saw both of them again, bare chest to bare chest, at least until Hiccup moved his mouth to Tina’s neck and she called him back over with her eyes.

Hiccup’s hands were at her waist, undoing the buttons of her fly, as his lips trailed down her neck to the curve of her throat. And no, not jealousy, Newt realised as Tina nipped at his lower lip and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, just the ache to be between and among them. He cupped her breast, brushed his thumb across her hard nipple, as she traced the line of his spine right to the small of his back then brought her hand round without warning and cupped his groin instead.

He made a strangled sound, even as his hips twitched against her hand, and Tina smiled against his mouth. In response, he touched his wand again, and Tina dropped a fraction of an inch as he moved her shoes to place neatly against the wall.

Tina pulled her head back and looked at him sharply. “Did you just remove my shoes?”

“I… figured it was expedient,” he said, at least partially to her hairline.

She pressed her lips together, but he caught the twitch of a smile. “I thought we said no magic.”

“Shoes isn’t a problem,” mumbled Hiccup against her shoulder, between mouthing against her skin, and Tina caught Newt’s eyes and started fighting against laughter, shoulders shaking enough for Hiccup to pause, which in turn only seemed to make it harder. He looked up, confusion in the scrunch of his brows. “What did I say?”

With a snort of laughter, Tina scooped him into a kiss, and Newt kicked off his shoes as well. He did not dare try the same spell on Hiccup’s boot, not particularly having tried it on single shoe before and not wanting to cause problems with his prosthetic. Tina guided Hiccup backwards, unerringly towards the bed, her trousers slipping on her hips to reveal an inch of the cotton drawers beneath. Taking his cue to follow, Newt put his hands gently to Hiccup’s hips, watched for a moment the shift and tense of the muscles there, then bent to very deliberately kiss his skin. Hiccup’s breath hitched, and Newt felt it as his hands roamed round to Hiccup’s chest, across skin less scarred and less marked but the hide of a magizoologist all the same.

To judge by the surprised sound that Hiccup made, and the angle of Tina’s arms, Newt could guess exactly where her hand had gone. He saw her kiss Hiccup’s temple, and reached down to undo Hiccup’s trousers and push them down over his narrow hips, Tina helping them along as well. Hiccup’s breath was coming faster, almost panting as he straightened up to kiss Tina again, and even Newt could feel how Hiccup’s erection made it more difficult to remove his trousers.

“You, ah,” said Newt, straightening up as Hiccup tried and failed to step cleanly out of his trousers. “You should sit down, if you want to remove your prosthetic.”

Hiccup had been long-used to his foot by the time that Newt had met him, and once he had realised that Newt would respond to the foot with the same simple acceptance that he would any of the needs of his creatures, he had been perfectly straight-forwards about it.

“Yes,” Hiccup said breathlessly, as if remembering his own limbs, and almost stumbled over his trousers around his ankles. He sat down heavily on the bed, tugged off his right boot and sock and untangled his trousers completely before unbuckling the strap above his knee that held his prosthetic in place. “That would be – _balls_ –” his foot slipped out of his grasp, and he threw up his hands and ignored it, before pulling off the layers of sock beneath it instead.

With a flick of her hips that still made Newt catch his breath as much as it had the first time that he saw it, Tina sent her trousers sliding down to the floor. She tugged Newt to her, and his mouth found hers without effort, almost without thought. He could feel her nipples against his chest, feel their movement as she breathed, and as she lowered herself to the bed he followed her, catching himself on the sheets so as not to fall, the way that their bodies fit together familiar in a way that he might have examined, in another time, another circumstance.

She pushed his trousers down, and they slipped awkwardly, leaving him to kick them off one foot just as Tina caught hold of his hips and pulled him tight against her. His own erection pressed between them, almost uncomfortable against her hip, but he kissed her throat and felt the heat of her core as he pressed his thigh between hers. He could feel the wetness of her arousal, her short blunt nails on the back of his arms, the way that she tilted her hips against him, half-rocking them in place, that made it only more difficult to think.

The bed shifted beneath them, and Newt looked up to see Hiccup, hair ruffled and cheeks flushed and eyes entranced. “I didn’t realise that you…” he said hoarsely.

“It’s… complicated,” said Newt, with a glance at Tina.

“We’ll explain in the morning,” she said, a statement and not a suggestion. She probably had a point about breaking the flow of things, Newt had to admit. He tried to prop himself up on his elbow and almost slipped off the foot of the bed, Tina clutching her back against him to keep him in place.

“We should, ah,” Newt got his knees and elbows back under him again in lieu of slipping further. “Move.”

Hiccup scooted into the middle of the bed, and Newt allowed Tina to move first, to sit beside Hiccup and kiss each corner of his mouth in turn. His hand skimmed down her side, to rest at the waistband of her drawers, and when he drew back it was with a downwards glance that was almost shy.

“Would you let me use my mouth on you?” he said.

Tina’s eyes went wide, lips parting slightly, but when she nodded Hiccup broke into a wide smile and kissed her again, with a half-muffled eager sound. Newt’s gut clenched again in that unexpected way as Hiccup moved to kneel between Tina’s thighs, letting his mouth trail down her neck and her chest, between her breasts. Tina leant back on her hands, and Newt saw the desire in her eyes, the flush on her skin, wondered whether it felt the same as the pounding of his heart and the fluttering of his stomach did.

Hiccup peeled her drawers down her hips, slid then down her thighs, and Newt felt the tremor of knowing what that was like, the lines of Tina’s skin, the way that her hips twitched to let the fabric slide away. In their wake, Hiccup kissed Tina’s thighs, light and quiet, and Newt could see the goosebumps rising on her skin. He lay down beside her, kissed a gasp from her lips, and ran his fingers over her breasts as she shifted beneath him. She kissed him back, slow and hungry, then made a half-surprised, sweet sound against his mouth. He did not have to glance down her body to know why, not as she grabbed his hand in hers and squeezed his fingers.

He traced her mouth, wondered and told himself not to wonder how it was that of the lips he had kissed, it had been Tina’s that he had come to again and again. Though there had not been other lips, these last years, until he had seen the look in Hiccup’s eyes and tasted the hunger on his tongue.

Tina guided his hand downwards, pushed it to Hiccup’s hair. This time, it was Newt who gasped as he felt Hiccup move, shift, felt the angle of his head shift as his tongue explored her. It was like a jolt of magic running between them, a feeling that ran bone-deep as Tina muffled sounds against his mouth and pressed his hand insistently, almost uncomfortably, down.

Hiccup noticed, could not have missed it with the way that he shifted his head against Newt’s palm, but did not pause or move away from it. Instead, when Newt glanced down he saw Hiccup’s hands on Tina’s thighs, stroking, working on some instinctive animal rhythm that they all knew, that ran deeper and easier than words even if words still became demanded in its wake. At least they were not demanded now, not as Tina’s teeth scraped his lower lip almost hard enough to hurt and she gave a sharp gasp, hold tightening on Newt’s hand, on Hiccup’s hair.

Close, he knew, could taste on her lips and hear in her breath. Her free hand groped at his thigh, then found his erection through his shorts and rubbed with pointed insistence along his length. But still, what made his heart pound in his chest was the sound of her breathing growing faster, the low eager sound from Hiccup’s lips that he seemed to feel in his hand as much as hear. Her hand was moving in time with the movements of Hiccup’s mouth, he realised, as she made a sound which she would have denied was a whimper against his lips.

“It’s okay, Tina,” he breathed. “You can–”

“Don’t you dare patronise me,” she whispered back against him, and he cut himself off almost guiltily, knowing that she probably had a point. Her teeth scraped his lips as she kissed him again, hard enough to hurt, and he could feel the tension strung out in her body, how close she had to be.

“I want to feel you finish.” The words were a confession, almost lost between them, and for the first moment he was not sure that she had heard at all. Then she drew back a fraction, and Newt could do nothing but meet her eyes, so close that they filled each other’s vision. Tina’s eyes were dark and shining and fixed on him, twin questions boring through his reticence. “I want to feel you come apart again.”

He kissed her lips, hoping in a way that he would barely admit to himself was to head off any more questions, then her jaw, her throat. From the first time they had fallen into bed together, he had found the sensitivity of her neck to be fascinating, and more than once had accidentally left marks on her skin, for her to heal away in the morning, in his chasing of the sounds it drew from her. He sucked at the tender point where her shoulder met her neck, and Tina gave a choked gasp, coiling tight beneath him and shifting her grip to his thigh just for a moment. A graze of his teeth; her hand steered Hiccup’s head through his touch, and with a single stifled, _“Fuck”_ and a sharp movement of one foot against the sheets he felt her spring loose again into climax beneath him. She held her breath, shuddering, until it rushed from her lips again, and Newt ran his mouth along the line of her throat and drank in the faint salt taste of her skin. He felt and heard her shift, writhe against the bed, until her head fell back and her hand softened on his, a wordless murmur meeting her lips.

And _Merlin_ , but it was a rush to Newt’s head, a lightness in his chest, when he heard that edge to her voice and felt one last shiver run through her. There was something about hearing the wordless sounds from her lips, so plain a communication, and about feeling her body move and clench in a way that had no language barrier. He still wished that it was his mouth, or his hands, but the gift of hearing and seeing her like this at all, and the way that he still felt as if he was somehow connected to her, his hand to Hiccup’s head, Hiccup’s mouth to her sex, it was still enough to leave the blood pounding in his ears.

It was probably for the best that her hand had moved to his thigh, he supposed, or he might also have lost control at the way she had shivered beneath him.

As her hand relaxed, he released his own grip on Hiccup’s hair, and glanced down just as the young man shifted up onto his elbows again. His lips were glossy, but it was his eyes that shone most brightly, still with amazement in his eyes that made him look almost honoured. Pushing up onto his knees, he hastily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and gave Tina that hopeful look, waiting for encouragement or criticism, as she sat up in turn.

For an answer, she reached up, ran a thumb beneath his lower lip, and when he caught his breath leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Was that what you were hoping for?” she said, quiet enough that Newt barely heard it, and smiled as Hiccup nodded.

They seemed to turn to face Newt at almost the same time, and he swallowed under the intensity of both of their gazes, underwear abruptly uncomfortable about him. He shifted across, not sure whether he was supposed to speak, what words would be right, and instead caught Hiccup’s shoulder and tugged him over to kiss him again. Hiccup’s lips were slick, and tasted a little more of salt, and Merlin’s beard he recognised that taste. But he could feel the heat of Hiccup’s cheeks, heat to match that under his own skin, and when Hiccup tried to shift his hands he instead fell into Newt’s chest, a collision of limbs and bare skin, and the bony hip that struck Newt’s groin was definitely not welcome but it was not so hard a blow as to override the awareness of having Hiccup tangled around him.

Hiccup barely paused in the kiss, his mouth chasing Newt’s, rolling so that he was more properly atop him and running a hand over his bare chest. His fingers paused slightly at the scars that marked Newt’s skin, noting them, but Newt knew that it would not be judging when Hiccup wore his own collection of them.

Catching hold of Hiccup’s thighs, Newt kissed him back, breathless and almost desperate and still giddy with the feel of Tina’s fast breaths as she came. Hiccup’s taut body against him only drove the heat deeper into his bones, and as they ground together even though the layers of their clothes and Hiccup moaned low in his throat Newt’s hands tightened, dug into the lean muscle.

It wasn’t as if he could really call himself _experienced_ , not with either sex, and all of the handful of beds he had found himself in over the years had been women’s. But there was still something bone-deep right about the body against his, when Hiccup’s hand grabbed at his hair and Hiccup’s hot erection pressed against the base of his stomach.

“Newt,” Hiccup breathed, pressing another open-mouthed kiss to his jaw, and managed to turn the name into something more than it had ever sounded like before.

Newt pressed up a hand between them, to Hiccup’s sharp intake of breath. He pushed down Hiccup’s underwear, not far but far enough, and wrapped his hand around the shaft beneath.

Hiccup drew back, just far enough to look down in astonishment, hair ruffled and lips parted. When Newt shifted his hand, Hiccup gasped, eyes going wider, until Newt craned his neck up to kiss him again.

There was only so complicated it could be, the movement of hand against skin, and for all that Newt’s heart was pounding his chest for the knowledge that it was the first time he had taken another man in hand, it did not make it all that difficult. Hiccup’s hips jerked, thrusting through the ring of Newt’s fingers, and Newt’s other hand pressed against the top of his thigh, the base of his buttocks, in what might have been a vague attempt not to let him move too wildly.

Another strangled noise left Hiccup’s mouth, and he caught himself on his elbows and hands as he thrust again, curving to bury his face against the crook of Newt’s neck. His breath was hot and ragged, not kissing but not all that far away as his mouth bumped against Newt’s throat, with a vague muttered exhortation of which Newt only caught the name Morgana.

Already there were damp streaks on Newt’s palm, both his own nervous sweat and Hiccup’s arousal, and it made it easy to slide his hand down Hiccup’s cock again. Hiccup groaned against Newt’s neck, already not just hard but twitching against Newt’s hand, and Newt’s knuckles brushed against Hiccup’s stomach as he stroked again.

There was a vein along the underside of the shaft, he realised, raised against the curl of his thumb, and he could feel the way that the length curved against his fingers. Hiccup gasped, softer, then breathed Newt’s _name_ against his skin and it was like a static shock down his spine and an expanding heat in his chest. Newt opened his eyes, feeling Hiccup pressed against and wrapped around him, all warm expanse of skin and trembling breath, only to realise that staring up at the ceiling was only more awkward than having his eyes closed. It made him feel strangely distant from it all, as if the desire and arousal burning through him was somehow far away and deep in his chest at the same time.

He only had one thing he could compare that to, and it was the last thing of which he wanted to think. In a burst of decision, he rolled Hiccup down to the bed, to a yelp of protest from the young man himself and a surprised sound from Tina as they bumped into her. Hiccup landed in something of a sprawl, looked up in amazement, then caught hold of Newt’s shoulder with one hand and the sheets with the other as Newt, half-kneeling and half supported on his left arm, took hold of his cock and stroked it again, firmer and more deliberately.

“Newt–” he said again, as if it was hard to get any further through a sentence, then his eyes only seemed to widen more as Newt’s thumb brushed over the head and his hips juddered in place. His right thigh came up between Newt’s legs, pushing hard enough at Newt’s erection to steal Newt’s breath in turn.

But he kept his concentration on his hand, on Hiccup’s cock, on the way that Hiccup was dragging in his breaths and he rocked his hips in time with the Newt’s movement. Hiccup’s fingers dug into his shoulder and it was as if there were no rest of the world but this room, Hiccup beneath him, seeming curiously inevitable in hindsight.

“ _Please_ ,” Hiccup gasped, and hauled Newt down into a messy attempt at a kiss, lips crashing together and teeth bumping.

Another stroke of Newt’s hand, and he felt the jerk of Hiccup’s hips a fraction before the hot splatter across his stomach, over his hand, and Hiccup moaning against his mouth as he melted against the bed. Newt drew back, something like triumph rushing through him even as part of him did discreetly wonder where he had put his wand, cleaning charms not being something he was capable of managing wandlessly.

He knelt up, still astride Hiccup’s thigh and with his own underwear desperately uncomfortable, wondering quite how he could be so lucky to have had the strange, occasionally infuriating figure come into his life.

He couldn’t help doubting that anybody really felt quite so positive about _him_ entering their lives, but Hiccup had that effect. Or had spent most of the summer having that effect, at least. And now he was thrown carelessly across the bed, all freckles and silvery scars in the late evening light, spent cock laying against his stomach and his shorts half-pulled down. In some absurd way, it made Newt just want to stare at him, to drink in the sight of his body sprawled out like that.

At least, until Hiccup broke the spell.

“Helga’s cunt,” he said, still half a gasp, dropping the hand that had been on Newt’s shoulder down across his eyes. But not before Newt saw the glitter of mischief there, the full-well knowledge that he was making jokes at Newt’s expense.

He _would_ have pulled Hiccup’s hand away, were it not for the fact that his right hand was rather a mess, and he settled for looking as stern as he could manage given the fact that he was in just his underwear and still sporting an erection.

“She is not your founder to besmirch, and you know it,” Newt settled for. Hiccup started laughing. Newt tried to point a finger at him, but that did not work well when all he managed to do was curl his fingers into the mess on his palm, and he splayed his hand out again with a look of annoyance. “You can swear by your own founder’s genitals.”

It was on instinct that Newt caught the cloth which Tina threw at him, and then he looked at it for a few long seconds in complete bewilderment.

“Where did you…” Hiccup trailed off, and Newt looked up as well to see Tina sitting calmly beside them, looking suspiciously at a small glass bottle of a slightly pinkish, pearly liquid. Hiccup put his hand back over his eyes again, going red behind his freckles.

“Young man, house to himself, chest right beside his bed,” she said blithely. “Is this what I presume that it is?”

“Yes,” Hiccup mumbled.

Newt wiped his hand clean, folded the cloth over to wipe at his abdomen, and wondered whether he should – or dared – be the one to wipe clean Hiccup’s skin as well. Hiccup reached down with his left hand to try to tug his shorts back up again, not removing his right hand from where it covered his eyes.

“The usual progression would be to finish taking those off, actually,” Tina added.

There was the slightest twitch of a smile at the corner of her mouth, fondness in her eyes and teasing in her voice. Hiccup peeked up from beneath his hand, with a twitch of his fingers, then propped himself up on his elbows and smiled up at Newt. Somehow it still looked half-shy, boyish, out of place but just what Newt was used to seeing on his features.

“I’m not the only one,” he said.

Newt remembered afresh the longing expression in Hiccup’s eyes as he had peeled Tina’s drawers down her hips, and it made heat bloom all over again beneath his skin.

He was still scrambling for an answer, struggling to figure out what to say, when Hiccup sat up with his smile turning to something softer and hotter, lust building in his eyes. One of Hiccup’s hands wrapped about the back of Newt’s neck and pulled him in to kiss him again, once on the mouth but then again at the corner, on his jaw, teeth scraping upwards towards his ear. The other slid down, and Newt felt a dull tugging as the buttons on his shorts were undone but it was really quite difficult to think too clearly about that when Hiccup was nipping at his earlobe, making a faint wordless sound that burred against his skin.

He really could see why Hiccup had been so incapable of forming clear sentences. Because as Hiccup’s hand slid down, cool against the heat of Newt’s cock, Newt managed nothing more than a strangled sound, and Tina laughed. Then the touch left again, and Newt mumbled something that might have been a complaint before realising that Hiccup was trying to push his shorts down altogether which, yes, that was probably getting somewhat overdue right about then.

With one hand, he helped, sliding his shorts down about his thighs, as his other hand pressed against Hiccup’s ribs, feeling the lean wires of muscle between the ripples of bone. A shift in their weight, and he sat down gracelessly, Hiccup chuckling as well this time before kissing Newt’s mouth again and finally managing to push his shorts far enough down that Newt could kick them vaguely off the edge of the bed. Hiccup’s hands traced Newt’s thighs in the same torturous way as his tongue traced Newt’s mouth, firm searching movements that almost, almost, managed to mask the tremble beneath. Excitement, adrenaline, Newt did not know, but there was eagerness in his eyes and his hands, on his tongue where he sucked at Newt’s lower lip.

“Those as well,” said Tina, close enough for Hiccup to jump, and Newt opened his eyes again to see Tina at Hiccup’s shoulder, one hand on his hip.

There was still a flush beneath Hiccup’s freckles, a slight flutter of his lashes as he squirmed out of his shorts, kicked them carelessly aside with his right foot, and it probably was going to take a spell or two to sort out all of their clothes in the morning. But that really wasn’t what he should be concentrating on, he knew that, as Tina kissed Hiccup on the mouth again and easily drove all such thoughts from his mind. Newt was staring, he knew that he was staring and usually it was the last thing that he would have done, but Tina’s hand traced up across Hiccup’s chest like mapping new territory, and Hiccup all but gasped for air. He was already hard again, Newt realised, and had to be at least a little impressed.

Hiccup’s hand came up between Tina’s thighs where she knelt beside him, and she drew in her breath sharply but it was him who said “Fuck” at was might have been a higher volume than he had intended. Tina drew back just enough to hold Hiccup’s gaze, but then flicked a glance over to Newt, and he knew without asking what she meant and it was like a bolt down his spine and to his cock. He knew, of course he knew, any reputable magizoologist or even regular zoologist should really have been aware that–

Lost in the sight of the kiss, he had not seen the _exact_ moment when the glass bottle had made its way from Tina’s hand to Hiccup’s. Then again, neither had Hiccup, from the way that he now glanced down at it and seemed to flush deeper.

“Have you, er,” another look up at Newt, and Newt had really been trying to avoid thinking the word _boyish_ but sometimes there was no other way to describe the hopeful, eager, guileless smiles which Hiccup treated him to. “With another guy, I mean.”

Well, whatever Newt had been expecting to be said, it was not that, although it was a markedly sensible suggestion given the circumstances. He found himself abruptly talking to a point just below Hiccup’s ear. It was, at least, a little bit easier, even if he was still quite aware that there were two pairs of eyes on him.

He really did have to wonder why it was that the _question_ was so much more difficult to face, whether it was just that it took from hazy to crystal clear the thought of what Hiccup’s body would feel like against his, seemed to almost retrospectively put a face to whatever dim fantasies there had been over the years. “ _Ah_ ,” he said; it came out something of a croak and made him sound as if he had done up his own tie too tightly, and he could see Tina’s lips twitch as she suppressed laughter at his utter lack of eloquence.

And he _knew_ that was what it was at, because she had teased him about it before when they had been in good humour, and been genuinely frustrated with him about it at other times.

“No,” he said. “Not – no.” Because he knew that Hiccup did not mean to kiss, to touch, and this was certainly the same time that he had found himself in the same bed as another man.

Hiccup swallowed, and it was a bit of a relief to see and hear that he was not exactly sure how to say things either. “It might be easier if you, ah… take the more active role.”

Newt knew perfectly well what _that_ meant, as well, and tried not to look too much like it had gone straight to his cock. He nodded, throat treacherously dry, and Hiccup leaned back in and kissed him once more, open-mouthed and soft, and pressed the bottle into his hand in turn. The glass felt very cool against his heated palm, the heat that was spreading all through his skin, and which only grew worse again when Hiccup’s fingers drifted feather-light down the length of his thigh.

He nodded, as Hiccup drew away again, and closed his fingers around the bottle altogether. Hiccup paused for just a moment, eyes raking over Newt’s body, then turned to face away. To judge by the sound of surprise that he made, he did not expect Tina to be waiting to catch him there, to cup his jaws and kiss him soundly. All over again, Newt found himself unable to look away, from the way that Tina’s eyelashes cast shadows on her skin, from the pattern of freckles across Hiccup’s cheeks.

Drawing back, Tina ran her hand through Hiccup’s hair, and even from the little of Hiccup’s face that was visible Newt could see the adoring expression there. “Don’t think you’re leaving me out,” she said, and for an answer Hiccup kissed her back and wrapped one hand around her hip.

They fell back to the bed in a tangle of limbs, and Merlin, but Newt could just have _watched_ them. The line of Hiccup’s back, the way that Tina arched up into him, the lines of their thighs against each other. Of course, it would have done precious little for the hardness of his cock, the desperate drag of his attention and the twitch of his hand to wrap around it, but he could have watched it all the same.

At least, until another throb in his cock reminded him of Hiccup’s words. With nervousness fluttering in his chest, Newt moved to kneel behind Hiccup and ran one hand over the curve of his buttock. He bent abruptly, kissing the middle of Hiccup’s back, one side, breathing in the scent of him and feeling the movement of his muscles as he breathed. His lips found one of the faint scars on Hiccup’s skin, and he was sure that he should remember the tale that went with it but he could not dredge it from the fog of his mind.

“Please,” Hiccup said again, and Newt was not sure who it was for, suspected that perhaps it was for both of them.

He kissed the back of Hiccup’s shoulderblade as he fumbled with the cork on the bottle that had been handed to him. The potion was cool and slick on his fingers, glossy-feeling, and he caught his breath as he smeared it the length of his cock. Already his breath was coming fast and ragged, but he doubted it was too noticeable as Tina moaned, as Hiccup said something that was not even words.

Hand shaking slightly, he trailed one finger down the crease of Hiccup’s buttocks, to the entrance there. With a gasp, Hiccup rocked back against him, just enough for Newt’s fingers to press without quite entering him, just enough for him to feel the heat of Hiccup’s body.

“Should I…” Newt said, against Hiccup’s skin.

But Hiccup shook his head. “No. Just – just do it.” There was something close to desperation in his voice, that yearning that was growing familiar now, and Newt’s teeth grazed Hiccup’s skin more in shock than intentionally.

“Okay,” said Newt. He could see the red mark on Hiccup’s skin where his mouth had been, could not bring himself to regret it. One of Tina’s hands was still wound in Hiccup’s hair, the other on his waist. “Okay.”

He was sure that he had not felt this uncertain, or this desperate, since he had first found himself in another’s bed. Putting the cork back into the bottle before it spilled, he set it aside somewhere on the rumpled sheets. Newt put one hand to Hiccup’s hip and, barely daring to breathe, used the other to guide his cock to Hiccup’s entrance.

Again, Hiccup pushed back against him, and Newt made a strangled sound as the head of his cock was swallowed up into heat. His hand tightened on Hiccup’s hip, and for a moment he could do nothing but drag in deep breaths, lest he finish in an instant like he were the teenage boy in this situation, as Hiccup paused beneath him in turn.

“Is that–” he began to say.

“ _Yes_.” Hiccup barely let him speak. His head was hanging, shoulders braced, and for a moment Newt caught Tina’s eye past his shoulder. It was a new tight feeling in his gut, even as her fingers massaged against Hiccup’s scalp and her lips shone in the evening light.

It was almost familiar, and almost wholly new, a tight ring of pressure around him giving way to heat. Then Hiccup rolled his hips against him, and _that_ was most certainly new. Newt’s fingers splayed on Hiccup’s hip, and his eyes fell closed as he carefully, slowly, sank deeper in. Hiccup gave an encouraging whine that ran straight down Newt’s back, a shiver that he felt around his cock. He dragged in his breath sharply.

“Newt,” said Hiccup, still breathless-sounding, after what might have been any length of time at all so far as Newt was able to keep track, “will you please just fuck me rather than freezing there like a chicken in a dragon den?”

Tina laughed, an inelegant snort as she tried to restrain it again, but she was pressed so tightly to Hiccup that it still seemed to jolt through all three of them. And Newt did not know what to say, did not know if there _were_ appropriate words to reply with, although he felt somehow that if Hiccup were on the end of such a comment he would be able to come up with a sarcastic response off-the-cuff.

For lack of a verbal response, he gave a somewhat tentative thrust, shifting away and sinking into Hiccup again. He wasn’t even sure what to call the sound that Hiccup made, something close to a moan, but cracked about the edges, and his head was damn near spinning just with the _feeling_ of Hiccup around him, hot and tight and then _tighter_ as he shifted his weight and seemed to clench around Newt. Newt’s knees threatened to slip, and he shifted to make sure he had his balance and kept his hold firm on Hiccup’s hip, his side, trying to keep anything like clear thought in his head.

It wasn’t easy. It was damn _impossible_ ; he could barely muster enough of a clear thought to try thrusting again, this time at least smoother and easier. One of Hiccup’s hands curled into a fist in the sheets as he rocked in time with Newt, urging him on, drawing him into a rhythm as natural and as easy as breathing as their bodies came together.

Tina wrapped her arms around Hiccup and dragged him down to her, kissed his mouth though the sounds of his moans. Newt was pulled down with them, a tangle of hot flesh and wild limbs, but then his mouth was at the back of Hiccup’s neck, and someone’s hand wrapped around his shoulders, and he recognised the way that Tina gasped. It was another sharp thrill, bone-deep, gut-deep, knowing that Hiccup was in Tina as sure as he was in Hiccup, some extraordinary roll of luck having brought them into one another’s lives, into this bed. Newt stifled a sound against Hiccup’s skin; Hiccup did not bother, and at another time Newt really was going to need to have words with him about the amount of sound leaving his lips because it was not in the least bit subtle.

But he did not care, _Merlin_ he did not care right then, as he kissed the back of Hiccup’s shoulders, feeling the shifts of the muscles there, and though the angle was a little too awkward for him to thrust fast perhaps that was a good thing, as they more ground slowly together. It let him feel the press of their bodies all together, the slow tight movement of Hiccup around him, until it seemed like his head was spinning and all that he could hear was the rushing in his ears, as sharp-edged and breathless as Hiccup’s desperate sounds.

“Hiccup,” Newt said, the words half-panted until he was not sure whether they were that much more than a breath. “I’m, hell, Hiccup…”

He did not have time to complete his warning, not before Hiccup pressed back against him, deliberately, and clenched hard around the base of his cock. The next that Newt knew he was coming, hard, wracking through his body until the world seemed to grey and blur around him. It was as if all that he could feel was Hiccup, around him, arching up to press into his body and reaching back to clasp his hand tightly. Newt breathed in the smell of Hiccup’s skin as the heat rushed through him and faded into bonelessness, leaving him to slump against Hiccup’s back.

Hiccup twisted, in a way that Newt was not quite sure should be possible, far enough to press a soft kiss to Newt’s mouth.

Newt realised that his thighs were shaking, struggling to hold his weight, and his ears were faintly ringing. He went to cup Hiccup’s jaw with one hand, only to almost fall on his side, and Hiccup laughed as he drew out of the kiss and half-caught Newt, rather inelegantly, with one arm.

“Maybe you should lie down,” he said.

He wasn’t wrong, either. Newt just nodded, body still feeling as if he was rushing through the air and with no room for clear thought at all. He slipped out of Hiccup, cock softening, and lay heavily on the bed beside them. There was a moment when their legs were still tangled together, and then Newt managed to extricate himself, falling back onto a mattress that felt as if it was moulding around him, or perhaps as if he was melting down into it, and he really couldn’t remember the last time that he had come that hard. Honestly, he couldn’t remember much of anything.

He took a deep breath, and became aware that he was being regarded with no small amusement by both Tina and Hiccup. Newt pushed up onto one elbow, but did not manage to do much before Hiccup caught his shoulder and pulled him across to kiss him again. This time the angle was better, and Hiccup’s kiss was hard, tongue in Newt’s mouth and fingers tight on his shoulder. What thoughts Newt might have been gathering fled again.

Finally, it seemed, Hiccup pulled away again, and Newt took the moment just to drink in his features. The patterns of the freckles on his cheeks, the messy ruffle of his hair, the sparks and lights in the green of his eyes. There was something half-wild about him, in the best and most beautiful of ways, the ways that Newt had always admired in the world.

Then Tina reached in, trailing her fingers up Hiccup’s throat and on until her fingertips brushed against his lower lip. He was still pressed to her, stomach-to-stomach and chest-to-chest, her legs wrapped around his thighs, and Newt could see the faint glimmer of the sweat across her collarbone as she drew him round to face her again. Hiccup’s gaze was just as soft for her, but just as focused, drowning into her gaze until he dipped his head to kiss her mouth again.

It did not feel… voyeuristic, uncomfortable, to see them kiss. Not awkward in the way that it often seemed to see two people share even a chaste public kiss. The intimacy of it drew him in, let him feel as if he was welcome and not an intruder upon them.

Then Hiccup shifted his weight, and Tina gasped eagerly. Her head fell back against the pillow, tousled dark hair against the white, and she splayed her fingers over the centre of his chest.

“I’m not done with you,” she said, voice low.

Hiccup made a breathless sound, then pushed up onto his hands and knees, bracing himself above her. He thrust firm and sure, eyes never leaving Tina’s, then found his rhythm against her with a soft moan of his own. Tina slipped one hand down between them, and Newt knew that was in her to, to follow the constant rush of pleasure rather than to simply chase after some climax, and she urged Hiccup on with vague murmurs as his breath grew more ragged, fragments of her name creeping in.

“ _There_ ,” she said breathlessly, legs tightening around him. “Yes, there – _oh_ –”

It was surprise, not orgasm overtaking her again, as Hiccup’s hips snapped hard against hers and a shudder ran through him before he fell still, panting. Tina kissed his forehead, then unwound her legs from about him as he knelt up between her thighs. Hiccup looked between them once more, then shyness seemed to flush through his appearance again, as he ran a hand through his hair and glanced away, smile a little uncertain and a little flattered still at the same time.

Newt still had no idea what to say, even if he wanted to wrap himself around Hiccup and simply lay beside him. Of course, Tina had always been better with words, or at least more blunt and ready to use them, and she gently waved Hiccup back down again.

“Come on. There’s plenty of room in this bed, and there’s no mess that a couple of cleaning charms won’t take care of. Unless any of your creatures usually wake you up in the middle of the night, in which case I could be tempted to return to my own room.”

“Shouldn’t be,” said Hiccup. “Unless the Occami decide they want a midnight snack again. Or Shadow, but only I’ll be able to hear him complaining anyway.”

“Good. Then get your ass down here, and we can talk in the morning.”

It was no surprise that Hiccup did not look in the least bit put out by the instruction.


	3. Chapter 3

Newt awoke to a very warm body wrapped around his. He frowned as he realised it was indeed real, and not part of his dreams, then opened his eyes sharply and took a moment for everything that had happened the previous night to come back. He suspected that he blushed.

It was Hiccup that was wrapped around him, the Occami either having not decided to ask for a meal at midnight or Hiccup having managed to climb back into bed again without waking them. He was very comfortable, if a little bit sweaty in the way that tended to come from being underneath a duvet too heavy for the season but, Newt realised a moment later, entirely nude under the covers.

Newt, at least, had made a point or retrieving his shorts to wear to bed.

He looked over to see Tina on the far side of the bed, one arm tucked behind her head and regarding them both with a slight smile. She was wearing her pyjamas, summoned through from her room, and had apparently lined up all three wands very neatly on the table beside the bed.

“Morning,” she said.

“Ah – morning.” Although they had been in Europe for a few days, Newt would not be surprised if the time differences were still in effect. The light outside the window was only dim, absurdly early in the morning at this time of year. “Have you been awake long?”

“Not particularly. At least you managed to find an apprentice that doesn’t snore.”

Trying to carefully disentangle himself from Hiccup’s limbs in the hopes of sitting up, Newt kept his voice just as quiet. “Some of the creatures seem to appreciate it, as well. Not that _that_ stops some of them from making enough noise to keep the others up.”

He gave up, and replaced himself with a fold of duvet for Hiccup to wrap around. Tina chuckled as Newt managed to sit up and dragged a blanket around his shoulders instead. It was not cold, not compared to many of the places that he had seen, but he felt markedly exposed despite, or more probably because of, the previous evening.

“At least this might get us to actually talk, I suppose,” said Tina, sitting up as well. Her smile faded, and she looked Newt in the eyes until he had to tear his gaze away and fix it upon the pattern of the duvet.

“Tina,” he replied, hearing his voice grow tense, “I know that in the past–”

“We’ve kept doing this and _not_ talking,” she interrupted pointedly, then paused, and from the corner of his eye he saw her glance down at Hiccup. “Well, not this precisely, I suppose, but you know what I mean. But we do need to talk.”

“And you know full well that I am not all that good when it comes to dealing in actual words,” he replied, the words faster and sharper than he meant them. Enough for him to feel at least a little ashamed of himself. He hitched the blanket tighter about himself instead. “But please do let me assure you that it has never been a matter of regret that has led me to avoid speaking to you. I was…” his fingers picked at the edge of the blanket, and he was not sure whether or not to be grateful to Tina for simply waiting for him to find the words. “I was more concerned that were I to speak, I would say the wrong thing and ruin whatever it was we had.”

“Have,” said Tina, more softly. He glanced up at her again. She had drawn the duvet across her legs, but the top button of her pyjamas was undone and it had slipped to the side to reveal more of the curve of her shoulder and the line of her collarbone. There was a very faint bruise just at the base of her neck. “Newt, if we’d said from the beginning that this would be just physical, then sure, it would be. But if we don’t define it…”

It was something of a relief to know that she, too, might struggle with the words from time to time. Newt was still trying to work out whether he should speak, or allow her time to think, when Hiccup stirred, raised his head, and looked in confusion at the duvet he was cuddling before catching side of Newt and sitting up sharply.

Then, even more sharply, clutching some of the duvet into his lap as he seemed to realise his own nudity, while Tina rolled her eyes at her legs being abruptly uncovered. She grabbed her wand and called over the blanket that had been folded at the foot of the bed, settling it over her lap again.

“Morning,” said Hiccup, with just a slight crack in his voice. He reached up to rub the corners of his eyes with thumb and forefinger in what might have been meant to be an unobtrusive way. “I’m sorry, I hope it wasn’t me squirming or anything…”

“No,” Tina replied. “Nor your various creatures.”

Hiccup glanced to the windows, probably gauging how long it was past dawn, how long it would be before the various creatures started to want their breakfasts. “Not yet,” he said.

“I believe that we both promised you something of an explanation,” said Tina, more baldly than Newt would ever have been able to. He resisted the urge to tuck his legs up against his body.

Hiccup at least looked less than comfortable as well, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “I guess, well… you don’t owe me an explanation about anything,” he said. “I just, er, I guess I just had to say that I didn’t know. In case you… thought I knew.”

“Trust me, even my sister didn’t realise until about the third time, and she’s a Legilimens. Can hardly keep out of other people’s heads.” Tina sat back, and pushed back her hair with her left hand. “I know that Newt has spoken about me, and I imagine that he has explained that we worked together.”

“Things got… complicated,” said Newt.

It was the best way that he could wrap it into a single word, and Tina gave him a look that was almost frustrated, but then the hard line of her brow softened and she gave a minute nod. Perhaps even she could not think of a better word for it.

“On a few occasions,” Newt added.

“I’ve… known complicated,” Hiccup said. His tone made it very clear that it was the sort of story that could not be boiled down to a terse sentence or two, and closed the matter as soon as it brought it up. Newt was more than happy for it to remain that way.

Tina looked far less ruffled, of course. But she had admitted to Newt that the first time she had told Queenie about anything – and yes, it would have been about the third time, or maybe the fourth – she had been nervous about it. And this with a sister from whom she had not been able to have true secrets since they were children.

“How long have you had feelings for Newt?” she asked Hiccup, bluntly.

Hiccup seemed to almost choke on thin air, then started coughing, the reddening of his cheeks probably not even due to embarrassment alone. Even Newt gave Tina a look which he hoped communicated that she had been rather too blunt, more a police officer than a friend – or, he supposed, whatever they were after the night.

As he recovered, though, Hiccup tried to clear his throat. “It’s, uh, that’s a little… complicated, as well,” he said. “I mean, I’d always admired the book – your book,” he added, with another of those shy nods in Newt’s direction. “And I mean… I never thought I’d actually get the chance to meet you. Let alone work for you.”

His voice had that softness about it again, softness that Newt was used to hearing when it came to the creatures under their care. It was impossible not to wonder, now, whether some of that had been meant for Newt instead.

Tina just smiled, as if she were not at all surprised. “Sort of always,” she said, with a touch to her voice that echoed a little of Hiccup’s accent. He looked surprised, then half-laughed and half-coughed together. “He has that effect.”

“I what?” said Newt, before he could help himself.

Hiccup laughed outright then, rearranging the duvet more smoothly around himself rather than clutching it in place. There was something in the way that he tilted his head, in the look in his eyes, that still ran warmth down Newt’s spine and put the yearning back on the tip of his tongue to kiss him all over again. It was strange to feel this infatuated, he thought distantly, but could not bring himself to dislike the sensation.

“I’m not going to… get in the way,” said Hiccup, cautiously.

“Life isn’t first-come, first-served,” Tina replied. “And neither is Newt.” She cocked her head at him, eyes seeming to bore right through him. “You want to have a say, Newt, or would you rather be bartered for like one of those pulp novel damsels-in-distress?”

He tried to maintain as much dignity as he could while wrapped in a blanket. “You do both speak rather quickly,” he said. Hiccup looked vaguely chastised, but Tina shook her head fondly. “And though I would be grateful not to be considered any sort of damsel, I will admit to not being wholly sure what either of you want me to say at this juncture.”

“Well, I guess the question is what you want with Hiccup, and what you want with me.”

He was not even sure that he could allow himself to consider that. Newt reached up and ran one hand through his hair, pushing it back from over his forehead. “It might also be better if you did not refer to _yourselves_ like some sort of damsels in distress.”

“And I acknowledge that Hiccup and I also need to talk,” added Tina. She looked Hiccup over, again, and some of the brusqueness left her voice. “Although, and stop me if I’m wrong, I think that what either of us might have to say is secondary to what you say.”

Hiccup mumbled something that sounded vaguely like agreement.

“I don’t…” Newt glanced at Tina, who was looking at him not unkindly but rather sternly, then at Hiccup who had that same painfully adoring look on his face as he so often had these months.

He knew the first thought that came to his mind, and knew just as immediately that he could not say it aloud. Time after time he had fallen back to Tina, like a creature following their homing instinct, as if there was something in him that had known that she was home before he had even been able to admit it to himself. But Hiccup had come into his life _fitted_ , as easy as breathing and with barely a pause. He could not think of anyone else with whom he would willingly spend hours lying under wet hedgerows waiting for the local fairies to appear, although to be fair that was partially because he would not subject Tina – or Jacob, Queenie, or their other friends – to that, while he knew that Hiccup was just as happy doing it as Newt was.

Tina pushed back her hair. She was rumpled from sleep, and in pyjamas that he recognised from some years ago which she must have been intending to wear when they stayed in London. And perhaps it was time for Newt to admit how long he had loved her.

“Newt.” Her voice softened. “Don’t think that you have to say either, or just one. You–”

“You mean a ménage à–” Hiccup started to say, then turned a scandalised shade of pink and put his fist against his mouth as if to hold back the rest of the words.

Tina looked at him in disbelief, lips trembling in their smile.

“Considering I didn’t think to mention the Parseltongue, I hope that it doesn’t seem like an unforgivable oversight for me to have not mentioned the French,” said Newt.

Tina gave up, and choked a laugh, eyes sparkling as she muffled her laughter with her hand and Hiccup only grew to look more embarrassed beneath her gaze. A sort of squeak made its way out as well, and then Hiccup laughed sheepishly, and even Newt cracked a smile as they looked at each other and both visibly tried to rein in their laughter while accidentally making each other laugh more at the same time.

It was Hiccup who looked away first, turning his eyes down and half-hiding behind the hand with which he rubbed his forehead. “I could have… I could have not said that,” he finished.

Clearing her throat, still with a ripple of laughter in it, Tina leaned across the bed and planted a soft kiss on Newt’s cheekbone. “You don’t have to say right now,” she said, quietly, for which he was inordinately glad. “Or tell both of us at the same time. But… I think we all need to know.”

She sat back up straight again, and looked pointedly at Hiccup.

“And I think you need to find some clothes.”

“Shadow has been known to take offence,” Hiccup admitted.

 

 

 

 

 

Newt was the first one to make it to the kitchen, in socks and with his sleeves rolled up but with his hair brushed and in clean clothes. He set the kettle to boil, knowing that Hiccup could always be trusted to have tea and that Tina would accept it in the absence of coffee, and was poking around the cupboards to see what Hiccup had managed to keep in that was not meant for the various creatures instead. Shadow was curled up on top of the cold closet and glaring at him, leaving Newt for once quite glad that he did not have Hiccup’s ability, while Reggie chirped hopefully and occasionally tried to put his tongue up Newt’s nose. Newt gently pushed the tongue aside each time; Reggie would be even more difficult to rehome if he did not realise that he should only do such things in the evenings or at night when his future owner would not be in public.

He turned at the sound of footsteps – or more precisely, one footsteps and one metal tap against the tiled floors – to see Hiccup in the doorway, in a short-sleeved undershirt and barefoot. “I’ve got a full breakfast about… sausage, bacon, chicken eggs. Couldn’t get black pudding in this part of the country, obviously,” he added, starting towards the cold closet. Shadow hissed at him. “Yes, good morning to you too. But I’ve got white pudding. And the potato farls are just tattie scones by another name, I swear–”

“Ah – no white pudding for Tina,” said Newt. “Or bacon. What’s the sausage made of?”

Hiccup blinked at him. “Meat?”

Newt sighed. “What meat? Pork? Beef?”

“Oh, uh, most of them are pork, but I got some beef ones for variety.”

“Right. Beef sausages, then.” Hiccup rubbed his eyes, then paused. “By which you mean no pork. _Right_. Sorry.”

“And no butter.”

“Actually,” said Hiccup, waving a finger and looking a bit more encouraged, “I found this… vegetable thing, doesn’t need to be kept cold. It’s in that cupboard to your left.”

Frowning, Newt opened the indicated cupboard, to be met with a navy and white circular tub. “T. rex?” He wasn’t sure why muggles would choose to name a product after a long-extinct species, but he supposed that there were worse things to name them after.

“Trex. Some new thing, I don’t know. My father distrusted it when I took it home with me. But it cooks fine.” Hiccup propped open the door to the cold closet and looked in blankly, clearly having completely forgotten what he was looking for in the first place. Frowning, he started to turn to Newt, parting his lips to speak, then he raised up a finger and ducked back in as his memory apparently caught up.

It had been some weeks since Newt had visited the cottage to see how Hiccup was getting on, but he still remembered where everything was, and it was surprisingly easy to move through the kitchen just as he had before. Apart from the extra awareness of Hiccup, putting food on the side, retrieving Reggie from the cold closet, and setting up on the table with greens for the first round of the day’s feeding.

It was a lot easier to prepare breakfast than it was to have to wade through complex conversations, even if he caught himself glancing over at Hiccup more than he usually would. This, they could do without words, weaving around the kitchen and taking it in turns to nudge Reggie away from whatever he was most recently chewing on. At least, it was easier until a hand ran up the back of Newt’s arm, and he almost dropped his wand as he realised how close behind him Hiccup was standing.

“Sorry,” said Hiccup, with a sheepish wince. “Should know better than to do that.”

“Considering I hexed the wall not that long ago…” Newt nodded aside as if the wall in question were actually part of the building, although it had actually been his brother’s house and had not seemed like such a charming anecdote at the time. For about the hundredth time, Newt had told himself he really should stop putting his wand in his mouth, but at least nowadays he knew that he would ignore the advice.

“I can handle hexed bread,” said Hiccup. His smile was warm, lighting up his eyes, and Newt was very aware of the fingers gently brushing his arm just beneath the fold of his sleeve. All over again, his eyes flickered down to Newt’s lips, and that warm adoration welled up in Newt’s chest.

He made sure to put his wand down as Hiccup leaned in to kiss his lips again. This time it was slower, more searching, tongue teasing gently at his lips as he stepped in closer. Newt bumped back against the counter, and then Hiccup was gently pressing into him, like letting their bodies flow to fit together. For a moment, Newt was not sure where he ought to put his hands, until he realised that it probably did not matter at this point and he wound his arms around Hiccup to let them fall where they might.

One settled at Hiccup’s hip, where he could feel the shifting of his muscles; the other on his shoulder. Hiccup stroked at Newt’s neck, then slipped both hands down, roaming against his thighs and reaching up to cup his buttocks. Then he paused, drew back just far enough for Newt to see, and looked up with uncertainty flickering for just a moment.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have…” he sighed, a soft huff. “I’m sorry. I should have asked, first, I suppose…”

“Yes,” said Newt. It was easier, somehow, to blurt out the answer than to try to build himself up to say it. “I want you in my life,” he breathed. “I want this.”

“Thank Merlin.” Hiccup kissed him again, more firmly, hands tightening. His forehead came to rest against Newt’s, and Newt let his eyes fall closed, let himself fade into Hiccup’s hold and the warmth and the presence of his body. “And Tina, too?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad.” Another kiss, and Hiccup pressed closer, this time truly pushing against Newt and not just coming to rest against him. Newt gasped as Hiccup’s hand ran up his ribs, firm and sure, and realised that yes, come morning he was indeed still impressed with Hiccup’s boldness. “I’m so glad,” he breathed again, against Newt’s mouth.

He made a murmuring, wordless sound as he sank into the kiss, shifting against Newt in a way that was perhaps excitement, perhaps not entirely intentional, but which certainly managed to grind their hips against each other. Newt could feel Hiccup growing hard again, and perhaps it was that, knowing how much Hiccup wanted him, more than the physical feeling of him that went straight to his groin in return. Whatever the original cause, it certainly did not help when Hiccup cupped his crotch, and Newt made a choking, surprised sound as Hiccup’s palm rubbed against him.

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I woke up,” Hiccup said, against his lips. “And wanting to touch you again, as well.”

It was like a flutter of warmth, all over his skin, with tendrils creeping deeper as well. “And I, you,” he murmured, between Hiccup’s increasingly intense kisses. The countertop was uncomfortable against the middle of his buttocks, but Hiccup was _warm_ and _inviting_ and fit so well against him that it was easy to fall back into kissing him again, easy to let his hips rock slightly against the pressure of Hiccup’s hand.

Hiccup drew back again, and Newt blinked at him until he saw the sly smile on his lips. He undid Newt’s trousers, lustful eyes and lascivious smile never wavering, and Newt might as well have been pinned in place for all that he wanted to move. At least, until Hiccup dropped abruptly to one knee, and Newt realised _exactly_ what he intended, and it wasn’t as if he could exactly help where his blood rushed at the sight of Hiccup kneeling in front of him with desire and excitement in his eyes and on his parted lips.

With a slow, almost teasing touch, Hiccup reached up and set about slipping his hands into Newt’s underwear.

At which point Tina entered the room, and whatever arousal there might have been burned up in an instant as Newt tried on instinct to grab his trousers closed again. Hiccup spun round in place, looking vaguely alarmed, then gave a sheepish laugh as he saw Tina’s unamused expression.

She was wearing grey trousers, and a loose white blouse that skimmed from her shoulders over the lines of her breasts. Newt could not help immediately spotting the mark on her neck, which only made him clutch harder at his clothes in a vague attempt to cover himself up. Hiccup seemed to remember himself, and hastily stood up again.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said, “but the kitchen’s hardly the place. Don’t know if you’ve ever heard of food hygiene, but…”

Newt tucked his shirt back in and did his trousers back up, his fingers managing to feel more like thumbs even as he did so. Tina caught his eye for a moment, and her smile became more wicked, but then she breezed over to the kettle as if she did not have a care in the world.

“And I’d usually appreciate an invitation to the party, but seeing as you don’t even keep coffee in this place it might be too early in the morning for that.”

Again, Hiccup started coughing in a way that very much sounded like he was trying to cover up laughter, and ran a hand over his hair as if trying to tame it somewhat. Newt had known for months that was a hopeless cause.

“There’s, uh, breakfast,” said Hiccup. “Or… the beginnings of breakfast, I guess.”

She looked pointed at the nearest corner of the table, on which was a significant pile of cabbage leaves. “I hope you don’t mean that.”

“No! No,” Hiccup said, hastily. “That’s for the mokes. And the clabberts, some of it. And of course Reggie will try to eat anythiiiiiii– Reggie, stop chewing on the table leg!”

“Proper, cooked, kosher breakfast,” Newt said, trying to sound both reassuring and as if he had not just struggled to do up his own trousers.

A flick of Tina’s wand and the kettle was whistling merrily, elegantly reminding Newt of just how much of the work of making breakfast he had not done. He picked up his own wand and returned to the matter of producing something that would actually be edible and unlikely to explode. Hiccup had assured him that everything potentially combustible was confined to the makeshift potions room, with its cauldron and the extra protective spells which Newt had put up, but in Newt’s experience there were always more combustible things than originally intended.

Mercifully, Tina’s way of getting his attention was to step up beside him; he was able to keep some of his concentration on the food so as not to burn it.

“I’m no Legilimens,” she said, softly, “but would I be right in saying that I think I know what your response might be.”

She placed the cup of tea in front of him by hand, but whisked the plates out onto the counter with a flick of her wand. Newt was quite pleased with himself for not burning anything, which was the sort of feeling he’d not had since he was a child and had first figured out how to sit on a broom without falling off. Strange, how somethings even the simplest things could start feeling difficult again.

“Yes,” he said, somewhat to the sausages he was focusing on getting just right. “I think you might.” Onto the plate, and he dared to look at Tina.

She was looking through the window, onto the misty rolling hills into which the cottage was set. Perhaps the Glas Gaibhnenn were out there, somewhere, but there would be plenty of time to look for them. And only this one moment to admire the way that the early morning light fell on Tina’s cheeks, the way that she was smiling. It only ever felt fair to drink in the view of her when she was not looking, somehow; he never had been able to explain why.

“And… yes,” Newt added, more softly. He leaned in to her, and when Tina glanced up he let his lips brush over her temple so that he could murmur in her ear. “To all of your questions today.”

From the corner of his eye he saw her smile, and felt as if his heart swelled in his chest. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and brushed the ghost of a kiss against his jaw in return before turning away and, with a delicate wave of her wand, relegating the greenery to one end of the kitchen table and laying out three places at the other.

“Reggie?” Hiccup was now trying to coax the Puffskein out from behind a table, where it was warbling mournfully to itself. “Come on, Reggie, you don’t want to eat the table leg really. I’ve got some nice carrot tops for you instead.”

Cup of tea in one hand, Tina crossed to the table, but paused just for an instant behind Hiccup. For a moment, Newt wondered if she was intending to try to help, only for her to instead smack Hiccup’s rear, making him jump and yelp and very nearly hit his head on a frying pan on the way through. By the time that he had straightened up and looked round, Tina was already drawing her chair, and Hiccup frowned at Newt for half a second which was really, in Newt’s opinion, half a second longer than was necessary before deciding that it could not possibly have been him.

“Let’s retrieve Reggie after breakfast,” said Newt, focusing on the questions that were easier to answer. “And worry about anything else afterwards.”

He wasn’t sure why it felt so easy to say, but somehow it did. The same as seeing them at the same table made sense, even if Tina was examining the Trex curiously and Hiccup surreptitiously swapped over his knife and fork.

Smiling, just to himself, he sent over the last of the eggs and toast to join the rest of the food on the table, before taking his own seat.

And somehow, against all the odds, things felt _right_.


End file.
